Vigo

Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
Good post, but this last one has a problem:

"Fan preservationists however can digitize the source material, and compress it so that it takes the WHOLE place of a DVD 9,minimizing compression artifacts and retaining as much information of the analogue source as piossible."

If there are compression artifacts from putting it on DVD-5, they are going to remain there if we put it on DVD-9. We can't "undo" the artifacts simply by "recompressing" the films, because too much material has already been lost due to lossy compression.

Originally posted by: THX
Yes, I'm surprised by this, as I understood that cue was initially intentionally excluded as it was felt to undercut the tension of the scene.

That was also my first impression when i heard the english audio for the first time, and thought: "great, another change to the OT, now the sound is gonna be chopped...", unaware of the reality...

Now that's unusual, I would have expected LFL to standardize the "official" mix for all but dialogue by now.

Originally posted by: THX
Thanks for that, Vigo. Very strange to hear that cue there (not to mention the German dialogue). Okay, so that shows it's not the same as the mono mix (even besides the obvious dialogue difference).


Cool, apparently, we Germans got our own Sound mix, where the mono mix has been used as a base. Interesting would be if there exist other foreign language mixes with further changes.



German release date was Feb. 9th 1978.


It's also possible that this mix, while substantially similar to the mono mix in content, could be in stereo. Unfortunately, the left channel from my cpu got disconnected and it's a nightmare to get to it so I can't tell from the sample. Vigo?

Originally posted by: BrianM
I believe it goes like this:

Big gun battle in detention block AA-23 (lots of music)
The gang jump into the garbage masher (no music)
I have a bad feeling…” (no music)
"It's worse" (no music)
Luke grabbed and released (no music)
Masher starts moving (no music)
Luke calls 3PO “Where could he be?”
We cut to R2, 3PO and the dimwitted ST’s. (music starts)
Back at the trash masher “We’re all going to be a lot thinner” (music continues)
Cuts between 3PO and the gang (more music)
Boom the masher stops thanks to R2. (the music stops on the BOOM).

It is the same on both my 70MM version and the mono version I downloaded.

I’d love to hear a different clip???

BrianM

Originally posted by: THX
If you could post a link to an audio clip, Vigo... (or anyone else who has the German LDs - Citizen?)

Originally posted by: ChainsawAsh


I don't remember music EVER appearing in this scene ...

Originally posted by: THX
I'm not sure I understand this, Vigo - how can the dialogue match if it's a German dub?

Originally posted by: BrianM
I was making a joke.

I saw the movie 20 some odd times in the theater 77-78 and that music was never there.

In 1980 during the re-release before Empire suddenly there was “A NEW HOPE” in the titles, strange music, extra lines, and Luke cursing Wedge instead if Biggs his wingman.

We thought Lucus had changed the movie when he changed it into “A New Hope” (Little did we know what was going to happen, SE) we were confused.

In fact we were just seeing the mono version for the first time. The correct version of Star Wars is personal and most feel the first version they saw is the “right one.”

If you think the 70MM/Dolby Stereo version is the “right one” you happen to be correct.

Originally posted by: BrianM


It's not missing, it was never there.

It was erroneously added later...

Originally posted by: Jobel
Whilst not being anamorphic and losing 30% of image resolution because of it, perhaps it's time to just accept that this is the best we are going to get and live with it?

Discuss.

Originally posted by: Shimraa
to vigo:

if you didnt see in her response she just told you that those will not work cause they are too damaged.[/quote]

Yes, the NEGATIVES are too damaged. However, there are lots of high quality 35mm and 70mm copies around (even serperation masters), from which could be made an excellent transfer, which easily exceeds an old VIDEO source.



Please, don´t just babble around. Inform yourself. There are several shots in the documentary which are clearly from the OOT, and ANAMORPHICALLY:

- the original titles including the pre-EPIV textcrawl
- the original death star explosion
- Han running after the guards, facing a massive backfire
- several effect shots during the death star fight which have been replaced with cgi in the SE

These shots were most probably taken from a good surviving 35mm copy of Star Wars.And even the shots which are the same as the SE are most probably taken from the same source, since they retain the original colours, which have been heavily altered for the 2004 release.


as for how many will sell, ok well this forum is world wide. we got like what 70 000 signatures. i rounded it to 50 000 and assumed that for every one person to sign the petition there were 5 others out there that wanted it and didnt sign. thats pretty resonable right.

as for the cost how much do you think it would be to digitally re-render and re-edit, and clean up 3 two and a half hour movies. thats millions of frames, with thousands of flaws on them to clean and sharpen.

Originally posted by: iamstillhiro1112
I realize what it is but the original movie was not anamorphic.

Originally posted by: Shimraa
its not narrow minded its practical. what is narrowminded is the fact you dont accept that as a reasonable excuse, cause it is. [/q

No it isn´t. The empire of dreams documentary (A BONUS FEATURE!) clearly shows scenes from the OOT in anamorphic quality.




1. they will sell much more than that. You are forgetting that people in europe here are also the customers.
2. you don´t have to spend millions to scan a decent film print. It´s a standard procedure nowadays. Films, which have sold much less than 250.000 have been given this treatment you think is so costly and special.


lets do some math, ok say you sell that many, and at 40 bucks a pop, thats 10 mill for each movie, 30 mill total for gross. now how much is the resoration going to cost them, i would say at the very least 5 - 10 million for each film cause there is alot of work to go from the original film to even the 93s. ok to be fair we will say 7.5 mill each, ok so thats 22.5 mill to make the things. now stores need to make money lets say and this si very generous that stores make 10 bucks on each dvd. ok so there we have what 250 000 times 10 times 3. thats 7.5 mil, add that to the 22.5 mill already to make the things, thats 30 mill right there. now what about the costs of advertising, and shipping and packaging and all of that. the bottem line is that they dont want to do it. and they have a legitmate reason. you may not like it, or think its fair, but look at it from there pov. i know they have made billions off you so what if they have a loss of a few mill on some dvd. well they care.

Dear people at Lucasfilm,

first, I really much appreciate that you finally have taken the first step to communicate with your fan/customer base. This is a very good base now to establish a dialogue, from which both sides can benefit.

> The DVDs being released in September will contain two versions of Star
> Wars: Episodes IV, V and VI – the Special Editions (which represent
> George’s vision of the movies) and the first versions, which will be
> included as bonus material. We hoped that releasing those
> “original” movies on a bonus disc would be a way to have some
> additional fun with the debut of the movies as individual DVDs. We
> certainly did not want it to become a source of concern or frustration for
> any of our fans.

Lots of frustration could have been avoided, if you would have given more thought about the nature of this release, by asking yourself: what is the target group? You are defining the original versions as BONUS material, which is fine, since we all are supposed to like and love the Special Editions. However, by announcing the release of the original versions of these films, and clearly addressing US, in the first press releases ("numerous fans have demanded this...."), you are clearly making the supposed BONUS feature as the main feature of this set. Everyone already has either bought the 2004 SE DVD editions or the bare bones DVD´s of the SE in 2005. So this release is clearly about the original unaltered trilogy.

Did you come to notice that the original versions of the movie would be the first non-anamorphic BONUS feature you are packing with a DVD set? Even the few scenes of the original trilogy, which clearly prove the source material came from an unaltered print, which are shown in the "Empire of Dreams" documentary (e.g.: the origional pre EPIV tectcrawl with all original logos intact, the original Death Star Explosion, the original scene where Han runs after the storm trooper (...)) are, you may already guess it, SHOWN ANAMORPHICALLY!

> As you may know, an enormous amount of effort was put into digitally
> restoring the negatives for the Special Editions. In one scene alone,
> nearly 1 million pieces of dirt had to be removed, and the Special
> Editions
> were created through a frame-by-frame digital restoration. The negatives
> of the movies were permanently altered for the creation of the Special
> Editions, and existing prints of the first versions are in poor condition.

While I certainly would love to believe you, the already mentioned "Empire of Dreams" documentary proves you wrong. Here, numerous scenes from the original unaltered movies are shown there in very good quality, which proves that good film elements still exists. Perhaps let me point of a misundertsnading, which seems to have arisen from our protests:

We don´t want a FRAME by FRAME digital restauration. We just want an anamorphic transfer from a good film source. YOu can´t seriously tell us that a 13 year old video master are the best surviving elements of the trilogy. Occasional dirt and scratches, which are also on the VIDEO , master you are using, are absolutely no problem for us. What is a problem for us is that we know that better film elements for the original trilogy are available, from which could be made a really good anamorphic DVD transfer. There are much older and much less-important films than Star Wars which have gotten a quite decent transfer on DVD.

> So many fans have requested the original movies, we wanted to find a way
> to
> bring them to you. But since these movies do not represent George's
> artistic vision, we could not put the extraordinary time and resources
> into
> this project as we did with the Special Editions. The 1993 Laserdisc
> masters represented the best source for providing the original versions as
> DVD bonus material.

As I already pointed out, the "Empire of Dreams" documentary clearly proves you wrong. Shame on you if the best surviving elements from the original Star Wars trilogy would be an 13 year old D1 VIDEO TAPE, since it would clearly show the lack of care you have shown towards the most important cultural artifacts of our time. Luckily, we film fans know better.

Famous film restauration expert Robert A Harris already has offered you his service for you, and even he is absolutely sure that with some little additional time and effort, you could easily make them look much better than old VIDEOTAPE masters you are going to use for this release......

Although these are non-anamorphic versions, they do
> preserve the original widescreen composition of the movies.

We never have disputed this fact. Even the old VHS versions from 1995 retain their original aspect ratio, as do my 1995 Laserdiscs. Having them in widescreen is one more important reason to make them anamorphically, since the loss of resolution would be even more drastically evident on computer equipment and 16:9 screens. You know that the market share of 16:9 TV´s here in Europe is really high compares to the USA?

> We want you to be aware that we have no plans – now or in the future
> – to restore the earlier versions.

Then you sadly leave me, and numerous of fans, no other choice to boycott this release, as I already did with the 2004 Special Edition. Be prepared, once this release has come out, that lots of customers, which are still unaware of this whole mess you created, will turn to you and show their dissatisfaction about this release. It makes me sad that apparently, you do not much care about your fans, your reputation as a technical leader in home entertainment and most important, the movies we all love and which enabled you to be this big enterprise.

I urge you for the third time to strongly reconsider this decision.

> We hope you will understand our decision and, again, want to let you know
> how much we appreciate your interest and enthusiasm.

As much as you seem to appreciate our enthusiasm, we, the fans, would really like to see some enthusiasm form you. You can´t tell us that a decent release is impossible. You are Lucasfilm! YOu have 20th Century Fox as a capable distributor! You have every resource which enables you to make them look great. Every 2nd grade B-movie gets nowadays a decent release on DVD. It is really a shame that you still don´t see the importance that these cultural important movies repectfully get at least the same treatment.

Yours sincerely

still a disappointed fan